Police officials escort Fawad Chaudhry to court in Islamabad on Jan. 25. Muhammad Reza-Anadolu Agency—AFP
An Islamabad district and sessions court on Friday sent Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Senior Vice President Chaudhry Fawad Hussain to Adiala jail on a 14-day judicial remand in a case over alleged incitement of violence against a constitutional institution and the family members of its officials.
The PTI leader was taken into custody on Wednesday after a first information report (FIR) was registered against him at Islamabad’s Kohsar Police Station by an official of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for “threatening” the electoral body’s members and their families. During proceedings on Wednesday, the court had granted police two-day remand of Fawad, rejecting a bid for an eight-day remand. On Friday, the ECP sought further extension to Fawad’s remand so he could be taken to Lahore for a photogrammetric test.
“Fawad was trying to create unrest,” the prosecutor argued. “The statement threatens the lives of the election commission’s workers,” he said, maintaining that further remand was needed for investigation as “technically” authorities had only received his remand for a single day. “The accused has accepted his statement,” he said, adding that the ECP’s employees had been threatened in the remarks that the PTI would reach their homes.
Rebutting the arguments, Fawad’s counsel Babar Awan claimed the ECP was seeking to pressure the PTI in collusion with the government. However, the ECP’s lawyer maintained that it was necessary to recover Fawad’s laptop and mobile phone. “Fawad’s statement is not one person’s statement but an entire group’s narrative,” he said, stressing that it was part of a campaign against the ECP and its officials.
Fawad also came to the rostrum and said that what he had said was “not necessarily” his personal opinion, but rather party policy. “I have to represent my party as I am the PTI’s spokesperson, and whatever I said was my party’s position,” he said and urged the court to block his phone’s sim, as it was in the custody of police.
Following the conclusion of the arguments, the judge initially reserved his verdict before rejecting the plea for further physical remand and sending Fawad to Adiala Jail for 14 days’ judicial remand.
Bail application
After the former information minister was sent on judicial remand, the PTI filed a post-arrest bail application for him, stating that he had been “falsely been involved in the instant case by the complainant with the malafide intention and ulterior motives just to harass, pressurize and blackmail the present petitioner.”
It claimed that the allegations levelled in the FIR were “absolutely false, frivolous and baseless” and maintained Fawad’s innocence.